A post about Countryfile

Here's Johnny!

It's long been things like the first snowdrop of the year, gobbling down pancakes, trying to give up alcohol for Lent, hearing the first cuckoo of Spring, celebrating Easter, the coming of swallows, the Summer solstice, enjoying the seaside delights of Morecambe during the Summer holidays, blackberry-picking, harvest festivals, riding broomsticks, lighting bonfires, the Winter solstice, celebrating Christmas, and making a New Year's resolution to try to give up alcohol for January - markers of the year, reliably recurrent and reassuring. 

For BBC Countryfile watchers, however, such time-blessed calendar customs now include that yearly episode of Countryfile where John Craven takes his own sweet time announcing the twelve photos chosen for this year's Countryfile calendar.

That annual episode always follows exactly the same format, and the former Godfather of Newsround always says exactly the same things, year in year out, and always repeats those very same things throughout the entire episode - ad nauseum and beyond. 

Plus, midway though, he always makes his excuses, deserts his fellow judges in their hour of need, and goes walkabout to explore the historic location chosen as a scenic backdrop (to the strains of Vaughan Williams's Tallis Fantasia) before then returning through some ruined archway to rejoin his fellow judges and build the tension to breaking point. 

(The Daily Express is reporting that tonight's judging was more exciting than The X Factor, with dozens of people tweeting that they literally died of excitement while watching it.)

And we'd have it no other way, would we?

(I'm addressing any fellow Countryfile fans among you there rather than all of you who think the whole thing is nowt but a muesli-munching townie's fantasy). 

It's now as much a part of tradition as eating mince pies, dunking for apples, guessing who's going to be on I'm a Celebrity, burning effigies of Guy Verhofstadt, and complaining that Christmas has become far too commercialised.

I was torn (for about a minute) on which of the twelve photos to vote for (for free online, naturally). I liked the rodent nibbling on the blackberries and the dawn-on-Anglesey-with-Snowdonia-in-the-background ones but in the end plumped for this truly fabulous effort ('click to enlarge', as they say) from an estimable chap called Tony Howes:

A barn owl intently watching 'Sunday Morning Live' on a dropped tablet amidst the reeds

I'm always on the winning side in elections and referendums (except for those where it went the wrong way), so I'm confident that Tony is going to be awarded the laurels this year. 

And rightly so. (I bet his photo's one of those that Simon King felt envious about).